Diagnostic and clinical significance of detecting bcr-abl gene in chronic myeloid leukemia

Objective To evaluate the significance of bcr-abl mRNA expression to diagnose,treat and monitor minimal residual disease in myeloid leukemia(CML).Methods Bcr-abl mRNA level of 145 CML patients were detected by real-time quantitative RT-PCR(RQ-PCR).Results Both correlation coefficiencies were over 0.99 for abl and bcr-abl standard curves.Coefficiencies of both interassay and intraassay variation were below 4%.Detecting bone marrow samples and blood samples of 11 CML cases,levels of bcr-abl expression in 8 patients were lower in blood samples than bone marrow samples,and 3 cases showed higher levels in blood samples.Expression of bcr-abl in blastic phase(BP) was markedly higher than in accelerated phase(AP) and chronic phase(CP)(P0.01).Conclusion RQ-PCR is reliable to detect bcr-abl gene,which can be used to evaluate the treatment outcome,monitor the minimal residual disease,and predict blast crisis.